How Web Design is Different from Print Design

Once a publication like a magazine or newspaper is produced, every one is pretty much guarenteed to see the pages the same way. The Newsweek that you browse in the library is going to have the same spacing, text size, font, colors and layout as the one that is delivered to your home. With the Web, there are no guarentees that people will see your pages the same way you desigmed them on the screen.

Page Layout is Not Necessarily Under the Designers Control

Resolution and Monitor size

Computers have different resolution settings which specify in pixels how much viewing area is displayed. Usually, larger monitors are set to higher resolutions because there is more screen area, but this is not always the case. A certain size monitor does not guarentee that a user has their resolution set to a particular setting. Laptops, although smaller than desktops, are usually set to higher resolutions so they can accomodate more space within a smaller screen.

Browsers

There are many browsers out there besides Explorer and Netscape, such as AOL browsers, WebTV users, and those accessing the Web from handheld devices like Palm Pilots and cell phones.

But even if we just considered the few dominant browsers, there are still dozens of versions of each, once you take into account all the different releases and the various platform versions of each.

Platforms

Mac and PC display Web sites differently. The same type size will appear larger on a Windows PC than on a Macintosh computer. If you set your type on your Web page to be small on your Windows machine, it may be completely illegible for Mac users. Colors will also display differently. To ensure cross-platform color support, you must design your site with Web safe colors.

User Preferences

Users have the ability to customize their browsers, and can change the way information is displayed on their screen. They might choose, for example, not display any graphics, or to display all text in Arial or Helvetica font. Users can also choose font size and link colors.

Window size, connection speed, computer speed, and color settings further affect the users' experience.

File Size Matters

It is not too often when we pick up a magazine and exclaim to our friends, "Wow, that file must be over 100 megabytes!" Who cares how big the file is after something is printed? The Web is obviously quite different. For users accessing by modem, file size is difference between a twenty second or a five minute wait. For this reason, it is important to take great care in optimizing your images.

The Web is Non-Linear

Visitors access each page by hypertext links-- from another page on your site, or from anywhere on the Web. The Web is about letting the visitor choose her or his own path through the information. You don't want to trap visitors with dead-end links-- pages that don't go anywhere. In this site, javascript pop-up windows are used to display content that is an example page with no links to outside pages. You need to remember to title each one of your pages, because as they say, "every door could be front door" -- you cannot trust that your visitors will visit your splash page or home page first, so make sure that inside pages provide some context indicating where exactly you are.

HTML's Capabilities are Changing all the TIme

HTML's creators weren't thinking of commercial online art galleries or snowboarding sites with sophisticated interactivity when they defined the basic tags. What they acheived was a way of navigating through information on the Internet using a system of easy-to-use and easy-to-learn hyperlinks. The first tags consisted of six heading levels, one standard and one monospaced font, numbered and bulleted lists, footnotes, indented quotes, bold and italic text, and the anchor tag for hyperlinks.

When the World Wide Web took off in popularity, there was suddenly much demand for more capabilities. Other tags were added to newer HTML specifications, such as tables, frames, background colors, text-wrap around graphics, and style sheets for precise control.

When it comes to the Web, the learning curve is constant. Web professionals need to constantly keep up with the HTML specifications of new browsers to take advantage of new possibilities.